Textiles and Tea, Misfits, Knitting group, third party Freecycle

I made it to the knitting group this week, bringing my new portable weaving.

M brought her wheel and was spinning some bluefaced Leicester and silk roving. I made a video for the YouTube channel which caught her explaining the process. 

Here's my new little weaving, a seamless pouch for my phone. The loom is the side of the box my Ashford loom clamps came in.

You see how you weave round and round to make it a seamless tube.

Such talent in this little group. Chat fell into many tributaries rather than group, for various social reasons.

Home again for Textiles and Tea with high energy 

She's an English woman, former professional oboeist, now wildly creative weaver and teacher, currently based in southwest France, in this great studio/teaching space 

 Here's her latest book, full of fearless ideas and philosophy 

Behind her are stalactite forms woven in a variety of threads including paper

She pursues seemingly impossible results and gets them. When she teaches, she limits the group to two or three so as to give maximum attention to each person's journey. 

I asked her if high jinks pretty much summarized her life and adventures and she cheerfully agreed that was a fair assessment.  I've rarely seen a happier more joyful worker, who tackles steep learning curves with total energy. 

Meanwhile back on earth, Wednesday saw me in the cardiologist office 

Shortly before being seen by a procession of nurses, nps, and the cardio, all of whom told me I was doing well and needed an annual ultrasound, or something, come back in two weeks. 

I notice my doctors now all have a walker at the scale, good thinking. Stepping onto that wobbly platform is a fall waiting to happen.

Then Misfits arrived so early today I never saw the driver, being upstairs getting dressed.

A couple of items were out of stock, dandelion greens and salty chocolate mix. Too bad about the greens.. 

I ordered a couple of starkrimson pears, of one of which I gave a sample slice to contractor Mike, who made a note. He and his wife are once again eating healthier, so he was glad to learn about a pear he'd never had.

The carrots are partly cooked for future quiche purposes, with the rest of the kale and maybe mushrooms from the freezer.

This is why I stocked up on the various cheeses. They're not in stock often, so I seized the day. Lunch may be a tuna melt, haven't had that in a while.

The strawberries will accompany the favorite yogurt, now back in stock. And maybe a smoothie or two involving bananas. Black beans to go with other pulse foods in the house. 

The bathroom is almost complete, soon to be usable again. I'll be glad to get my house back. I haven't seen so many people in years, more than I need really. 

The knitting group, all the doctor personnel, Handsome Son, who's always welcome, contractor Mike, neighbor who brought over a fall chrysanthemum, on and on.  My social cup is overflowing and I need recovery time. 

I put up a "spotted locally" Freecycle notice about this bicycle 

I know little about bikes, but I see the chain is rusty and needs attention. Maybe someone will want to rehab it.

Happy day everyone, well done, Alberta,  and everyone keep pushing for the good people. Most countries are in a right wing wave just now, and resistance is required, sez Ted and Big Ursy and Pony and Ursula 

Forsytes, Freecycle and Floor cloths

I'm currently watching this 

It's a good production, wonderful interiors, costumes, carriages, all that, and great casting. It takes some liberties with the original plot but it works anyway.  

Francesca Annis looks a bit youthful for the matriarch,oddly, since she's actually about the right age in real life, but her facial acting expression is wonderful, great communication.

The Forsytes Saga is the gift that keeps on giving. I've seen at least three productions on TV, all good.

Meanwhile back at the maker space, I checked the weaving of the proposed floor mat and realized it could be slippery. So I rethought and made the pieces into kitchen cloths instead. 

It's good cotton, so it will work. And now I've got all I needed from this yarn, so today I'm passing the rest on to a keen knitter anxious to get hold of it.

There were any number of potential takers on Freecycle, and it's going into grateful hands.

I'm looking for takers for any or all of these items 

And there's another folding bookcase as soon as I can get it downstairs to take a picture. It's like the other one I Freecycled recently, in fact it can be stacked on it

And this will probably get a taker

I use a steel, so I don't need it. Someone will be happy, I expect.

The less stuff I have around, the better I can breathe. The house looks bigger, too.  Ed addition: both knife grinder and bookcase had takers within minutes.

I was up very early Sunday so I improved the shining early hour by baking banana bread, with a bit of coffee essence added in. 

Second Sunday breakfast. That's Chobani yogurt, plain, on top. 

And here's a local warning from the county prosecutor's office (?)

The thing is they're warning about phishing, links, all that. And they give a link to find out more. I'm not clickin' no link!

Happy day everyone, so much good stuff around, hopeful about the elections, including the Alberta referendum.

Bathrooms, Textiles and Tea, late and early flowers

The Bathtub Adventure is in progress, after landing on a week with long-standing medical appointments I had to rearrange. It is ironic that the work to make the bathroom accessible, finally, conflicted with actual health care appointments. 

It's gone very well, and here are a few interregnum pictures. The insert is now curing for 48 hours, and on Friday it will be finished then tiling and painting will follow.

Chunks cut out of the tub

The insert door is to make the tub work for tub bathing. It locks and seals in place by hand, no tools needed

Those gaps have caps when it's finished, to look more streamlined and be waterproof 

Similarly here's the door in place without caps, until it cures completely.  The step is wide enough for your foot, also has a skid proof finish. So you can get in and out with minimal striding, no reaching your foot over the step.

Mike is a lovely craftsman, leaves everything looking beautiful, not a speck of dust when he gets done. 

He's very pleased that after much searching he was able to get tiles to match closely the ones in place. They don't make them any more, and we're only retiling a section around the toilet where some tiles got broken, helpful amateur work, don't ask.

Anyway he went to the Habitat for Humanity Re-Store in Pennsylvania, donated a lot of door hardware and tools and found half a box of the right tiles. Score! 

Today we still have a few late flowers 

and these arrived, for next spring, to be planted near the front door 

They're blue, so I'm hoping for a mass of blue as I come up the front path.

Once again I need to weed that same old patch, now with different weeds from the ones I pulled earlier. I was going to do this tomorrow but had a labor saving idea.  

I checked the first expected frost. Late next week. So that's when I'll pull the weeds, so they don't return this year, and plant the bulbs. Also finally clear the flowers from the patio, since their season will definitely be done. 

Textiles and Tea was unusual this week, with Neil Goss, a true free spirit, an environmental artist, who forages, dyes and weaves works to leave outdoors and eventually join nature. 

He also teaches and creates gallery work, but his outdoor pieces are really his mainspring. He likes community participation in his weaving, here at the backstrap loom he built from a bunch of sticks in traditional fashion.

He does have a traditional floor loom in his studio, a Macomber, on which he created a number of the pieces you see. His work all has a personal narrative but it's not vital to know it in order to get a lot out of seeing it.

When he does a weaving residency, he invites people to take part, add in items, try their hand at weaving, a great test of a weaver's patience and control issues, as he notes. 

He's a generous person and artist, and very aware that he's a white man working in an indigenous women's art form. He also acknowledges the Cherokee people who lived in his region on the land which is now his home.

Check him out. He's a force of nature.

Speaking of art, I just Freecycled this material to a local artist who's very excited to try it out.

This is paper backed silk chiffon which can go through the printer. You peel off the paper and have a beautiful transparent image to work with. 

I used to scan and print sections from my watercolors then use the silk in stitching. It's a marvelous visual experience to have your own work apparently floating in air, released from its original form.

Now that I have none of the electronic equipment needed, and have moved on, it's fun to give another artist a try at it. It's like image transfer raised to a new power.

Happy day everyone! I hope your day is raised to a new power, too.

Sez Ted and Big Ursy and Pony and Ursula